Day 5 : Flight 10 Apr 17th MIA-STT American Airlines 19.05

Day 5 : Flight 10 MIA-STT American Airlines 19.05

Aircraft: Boeing 757

Class: Business

Distance: 1110 miles

Tier points:40

 

A small note about the technicalities of this flight. I really dislike this one because it only books into business class not first (despite the fact the seat is identical to that on the domestic first class routes) which means it earns lower tier points and although its almost a 3 hour flight it's not far enough to earn any more than 40 tier points. The reason for making this sector is that is significantly reduces the price of the ticket, it almost halfs the price of the hnl-mia segment.

 

I go to the Admirals Lounge in MIA for a glass of water and an apple. The flight is delayed by 40 minutes - my first delay of the entire journey which is both a surprise and a massive relief.

 

I get the travel pillow out and I'm asleep while taxiing for the runway, take off wakes me up and my last sector of the day in underway.

 

Passengers are generally pretty groggy on this flight, lots of moaning about the delay and people are moaning about the food. I had a cheese pasta which satisfied my hunger but was not the greatest thing I've ever eaten.

 

I drift off to sleep again and am woken by turbulance as we approach St Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

Landing goes without any major bumps and we are down. 

At this point it's been 30 hours since I checked out of my hotel in LA and I've just hit 520 Tier Points in 20 hours. I feel terrible, I've got a constant headache and when I get my feet on the ground I've got some sort of motion sickness where my head is spinning. I'm not sick and pop an aspirin to try to get rid of the headache.

I'm beginning to grow fond of these ageing 757's!

I arrive at STT at 22.30 and my hotel is only 500m away. The airport has an open air baggage claim and there is more than sparsely populated with some shady looking locals loitering outside.

I grab an airport worker and explain I'm planning to walk 500m down a dark road to my hotel, he replies "you can walk it, but you don't want to be walking it".

I get a taxi, it takes about 90 seconds once we're moving and costs me $6, a small price to pay for arriving safe and sound with all my possesions.

The Best Western didn't have great reviews, the check in girl spoke with an american accent and although the hotel was very basic it was perfectly acceptable for a one night stay. It also had good free wifi in the room.

I'm straight into bed with a pounding headache.